Shipbuilding
If you so wish to, you can have a go at building your own ships to send on Voyages, instead of using one of the Company's or pre-chosen ships. In many respects, making them yourself is better, as you get an exact idea of the kind of stats that your ship has. However, it is a very costly to do (which you can read about more in detail below), so think carefully before you decide whether it is the right venture for you or not. The Basics Every Ship that you build requires you to make the basic ship first (these can cost anywhere from 500k-700k GG, depending on the blueprint), then you can go on to upgrade it to having better crew, faster sailing, more hit points etc. You must also have the required materials for the blueprint that you have bought, in order to make the ship - this can be anything from several canvas panels (for sails) to coils of rope (for rigging) and various full, packaged shipments (usually cloth or wood) . Some can be found at the Shipyards, others you can find and/or have to make yourself. There are also certain kinds of tools that may be required for you to build your ship and upgrades for it, such as the Hammer, Saw and the Sailmaker's Needle There are 4 Ship Types, which you can find listed below, along with their basics stats for the amount of Cargo/Hit Points/Crew/Speed/Upgrades that each of them have (in that order): *Sloop - 2/40/Poor/5/9 *Galley - 3/70/Poor/2/8 *Dromon - 3/80/Poor/3/9 *Carrack - 4/60/Poor/2/10 Upgrades There are a variety of upgrades available for you to "add-on" to your ship, once it has been built. There are upgrades available for boosting the amount of hit points your ship has, how much cargo it can hold, how fast it travels and the quality of its' crew. Please be aware that there are some kinds of ships that are not able to have certain upgrades added to them. For example, Galley and Dromon ships cannot be upgrades to having Topsails as they obtain most of their power and speed from having a vast amounts of Oars onboard and therefore instead use the Oar Bank upgrade, whereas ships that require grand sails to harness the power of the wind for their movement can use the Topsail upgrade, but not the Oar Bank ones. All the tools and materials required for building an upgrade, plus the ship you wish to add it on to, must be in the same container in order for you to build it, or out in open inventory together, as otherwise it will not register them and will think that they are missing (see image above). Below is a list of the various kinds of upgrades available for use on your own made ships, along with how much of a stat boost it gives per each individual upgrade used. *Cargo Hold - Increases Cargo by 2. *Oar Bank - Increases Speed by 1. (Galley and Dromon Ships only) *Reinforced Hull - Increases Hits by 15. *Superior Quarters - Increases Crew by 1. *Topsails - Increases Speed by 1. (Carrack and Sloop Ships only) *Ushabti Crew - Increases Crew by 1. *Veteran Crew - Increases Crew by 1. Also note that each kind of ship has a limit for the amount of upgrades, then further how many of a specific upgrade it can have. *There are 7 different Speeds that ships can travel at - as a general rule of thumb, the smaller the ship, the faster it can go. The various Speeds are 1 (Slow), 2 (Average), 3 (Brisk), 4 (Fast), 5 (Very Fast), 6 (Swift), 7 (Very Swift). *There are 4 different qualities of crew that your ship can have: Poor, Average, Good, Superb (the best) *The maximum Speed a Carrack Ship can have is 4 (Fast). *Other ship maximums will be added as they are discovered. In regards to what kind of Upgrades are the best ones to have depending on the kind of Voyage you're going on, David had this to say on the main Grophland website forums: "More cargo is the right way to go if you want to sail for the further destinations. At Carrack speed you could be 2-3 weeks going to Chack-Chack or Tollia (where the profits are higher) and will want the most cargo possible. If you are doing short runs to Jungle Island though then you probably want to make sure your cargo gets through, and go for more crew." So in other words, if you was sailing with a Carrack ship to Chack-Chack, your ship stats might looks something like this: Whereas if you was sailing to the Jungle Island, they might want to look something more like this: